


In Which We Go Visiting and Get Into A Tight Place

by Signe (oxoniensis)



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: 1000-3000 words, Episode Related, Episode Tag, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-28
Updated: 2009-11-28
Packaged: 2017-10-03 22:27:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oxoniensis/pseuds/Signe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"While you're all merrily celebrating the fact that the Colonel has, yet again, slain the metaphorical dragon, might I just point out that I'm still, you know, stuck."</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Which We Go Visiting and Get Into A Tight Place

"While you're all merrily celebrating the fact that the Colonel has, yet again, slain the metaphorical dragon, might I just point out that I'm still, you know, _stuck_. Underground, in a catacomb that's falling down around me. And unless you want to simply stick a monument on top of my dead body, how about you _come get me out_."

John turned his earpiece off before Rodney started suggesting inscriptions for the monument.

Still, Rodney did have a point. Even allowing for the usual amount of exaggeration, it wasn't looking good for Rodney. When John had asked, for the second time, if Rodney and Baldric couldn't find a way out for themselves, he'd been treated to something even worse than Rodney in full rant mode. Silence. Pointed silence. The sort of silence that put laser cutters out of business.

He didn't try asking a third time.

The problem was, John kind of suspected that Rodney wasn't going to like the solution John was about to propose. No, scratch that. John _knew_ Rodney wasn't going to like the solution. And he was going to argue about it, and complain, again, all very loudly, even though eventually he would have to go along with it, because right now it was the _only_ solution.

He looked down at the ground, hoping for last minute inspiration.

"I believe you're going to suggest using the hole left by the drone, are you not, Colonel?"

Teyla was a smart woman.

"I don't think Dr. McKay is going to like that idea," she continued.

A very smart woman.

Ronon rolled his eyes, in a very clear 'I'm glad I'm not the one telling Rodney' manner.

No help from that quarter then, and no point delaying the inevitable any longer.

John turned his earpiece back on.

"There's a way out, Rodney."

"At last." A pause. "And exactly how long have you been holding onto that little piece of information?"

Clearly a moment when offence would be better than his non-existent defence.

"Actually, I'm surprised you haven't worked it out for yourself."

"There's no way out! I told you, the way we came in was the only entrance – only, singular, meaning one, not two, _one_ \- and it's completely blocked. Nothing's getting out that way. We damn near got killed when it all collapsed."

"The drone got out."

"Yes, of course the drone got out. The drone bored its own way through the ceiling. Thank you so much for stating the patently obvious." Then there was silence. John counted, silently. One, two, three. "No. No, you are not going there. That's a bad idea. That is a very, very bad idea. Even for you, that is a bad idea."

"We can borrow a rope, we'll have you out in no time."

Rodney's eventual reply was muted.

"I'm claustrophobic – you can't expect me to go through such a confined space."

John had rarely heard Rodney sound this perturbed. Raging and panicking, yes, he'd witnessed that more than once, and it actually seemed to help Rodney focus, but this quiet anxiety was worrying.

"Besides," Rodney continued, almost hopefully, "The hole's too small."

"You'll have sky and fresh air above you, and that has to be better than waiting for the catacombs to collapse. You'll just need to scrunch up a bit as you're going through." John hoped his voice conveyed the right level of reassurance.

"Scrunch up a bit? _Scrunch up a bit_? Are you _insane_? Wonderful, I'm on a mission lead by a crazy person."

Ah, that sounded more like Rodney.

"You can do it, Rodney. Unless you just want us to get started on the monument. How about _'Here lies Rodney McKay - he was too stubborn to climb out'_?"

"It's on your head if anything goes wrong."

"Nothing is going to go wrong." Calm, soothing and confident. He was beginning to convince himself this would work.

It didn't take Ronon long to fetch rope: the villagers were well prepared for accidents in the catacombs, though their rope looked as though it had been hand woven from any scraps they could spare. But still, it seemed sturdy enough, and better to get Rodney out now, rather than have the joy of telling him that there would be another delay while they collected rope from Atlantis. And he certainly wasn't petty enough to count the _months_ he'd spent waiting to be rescued on the planet of the Cloister, better known to everyone on Atlantis as The Planet Where Sheppard Was Hit On By The Nearly Ascended Being, Again. Regardless, retaliation was out of the question.

Besides, Rodney had already been complaining about dehydration and hypoglycemia, and John was sure Rodney would be able to add to that list with a few more isms and emias if he was told to wait even longer.

He dropped one end of the rope down the hole.

"I'm not a monkey, Colonel," came Rodney's last-ditch complaint. But his heart wasn't in it, John could tell, and he could feel Rodney tugging on the other end of the rope.

"My pack is ready to go up," Rodney instructed after a minute, and John started hauling it up. "Take it up carefully."

John tried to tune out the nervous litany of instructions and warnings and yelps every time the backpack hit the side of the tunnel. Not an easy task.

"_Carefully._ Are you a complete moron, or do you just have no concept of careful? My laptop is in there, delicate equipment."

"It's fine, Rodney, no damage done," John said hopefully as he dumped the pack unceremoniously on the ground. The laptop was a sturdy make – he was sure it would be okay. "It's Baldric's turn now. We'll pull him up to the start of the tunnel, then tell him he'll have to scrunch up while we pull him through that: it's going to be a tight fit."

"You're a past master at stating the obvious, Colonel."

John turned off his earpiece for a moment and handed the end of the rope to Ronon and Teyla.

"Are you certain that Dr. McKay and the guide will be able to fit in the tunnel, Colonel Sheppard?"

John nodded vigorously, then looked Teyla in the eye and found himself shrugging uncertainly.

"I wouldn't fit in there," Ronon pointed out.

"Well, no, but then you're a few sizes larger than the rest of us. They'll manage. I think. Hopefully."

"Shame the Daedalus isn't here."

John resisted the temptation of making a McKay style putdown. He was beginning to miss the days when Ronon never spoke. "Are you both ready?"

After affirmative nods, John turned his earpiece back on and checked with Rodney.

"You ready?"

John could hear the sound of pacing, and a muttered argument.

"Anything the matter, McKay?" John called down the hole.

"Beyond the obvious?" Rodney huffed loudly. "Baldric doesn't want to climb up the rope, not with all the earth tremors we've been having. And you know what? I don't blame him."

"Then you'll just have to come up first and show him how it's done."

Rodney's sigh was loud enough to carry up the hole. John noticed Teyla suppressing what was decidedly a smirk, and Ronon was clearly enjoying the exchange too because there was no attempt to hide _his_ smirk. John shrugged his shoulders, and bent over the hole in the ground once again.

" I suppose there's no choice?"

John could sense a note of desperation under the question, and felt a twinge of sympathy for Rodney.

"Sorry, Rodney. But we'll have you out of there in no time."

A couple of minutes later, there was a resigned shout. "I'm ready."

A few steady pulls, and the end of the tunnel went completely dark.

"Go slow," Rodney puffed. "It's—a tight—squeeze."

Rodney's arms slowly came into view down the tunnel, then his face, screwed up in an unhappy grimace. Just a few more yards to go.

Then—resistance.

It felt like John was doing all the work, but a quick look behind him showed Teyla and Ronon grimacing as they strained, and several villagers tagged onto the end of the rope.

"Rodney?" he shouted.

"Don't bellow. I'm stuck, not deaf."

"What do you mean, you're stuck?"

"Stuck. Defined as unable to move. It's a one syllable word – surely you're familiar with it?"

"But you can't be, not when you got that far up the tunnel. If you could get in, you have to be able to get all the way through."

"Yes, well, impossible or not, I am most definitely stuck. Apparently I'm able to break the laws of Sheppard-universe."

"Did you breathe out or something?"

"Colonel, I have been breathing in and out all the time. It's taken several minutes so far, so I was hardly likely to have been holding my breath all that time."

"You must have expanded somehow."

"Well yes, because I thought I'd take a break half way up a dangerous, narrow tunnel to have a three course meal. The steak and fries were especially tasty. So sorry I didn't save you any, but I thought they might be cold by the time I got out."

"Looks like we'll have to wait until the meal settles then."

"That is not even remotely funny."

"Can you move back down?"

"No."

"Can you wriggle anything that might loosen you?"

"..."

"Come on Rodney, you know if anyone can do the impossible, it's you."

"Trying to flatter me isn't going to work. Okay, well, it will work, we both know it'll work, but shut up anyway and let me think."

John hoped Rodney thought quickly. It'd been a long couple of days, and he wanted off this planet. He wanted the (relative) sanity of Atlantis where the food was mostly crap, but at least meals didn't come with the threat of added poison, and frighteningly nubile girls didn't wander into his room and start stripping.

He shuddered at the memory, and resolved to leave that particular detail off his mission report.

John resisted the temptation to urge Rodney to hurry, but the sky was graying over and looked like rain, and there was the risk of another tremor any moment. Charging the city's star drive engines had done even more damage than John had expected.

And as if the planet heard the thought and hated them, the ground started to shake.

John braced himself and held onto the rope, Ronon and Teyla still behind him. A few villagers remained in a nervous huddle, Baldric's family, maybe – he hadn't thought to ask. The rest were running back to the village, stumbling as the ground shook beneath them.

The tremor couldn't have lasted long, a few seconds at most, though it felt longer. Much longer.

There was no visible damage around him, beyond one minor crack in the ground, but it could have done any amount of damage underground. To the catacombs. To the tunnel. To Rodney.

John felt numb.

"Well, are you just going to stand there all day, or are you going to pull me out?"

John almost laughed out loud – he'd rarely been so glad to hear the sound of McKay complaining. And, less than a minute later, he had the welcome sight of a very grubby, very irritable Rodney climbing out of the now much larger hole.

"Don't think you're going to be getting any rescue sex this time," Rodney hissed, the moment he was standing on solid ground.

John pointedly moved his eyes from side to side towards Teyla and Ronon, and raised his eyebrows in a 'not in front of the team' gesture.

"Oh, like they don't already know. And they're at it too, so it's not like they're going to be saying anything about us."

"Rodney is mistaken in his assumption, but he is right that we would not mention anything about your relationship to others, is that not so, Ronon?"

"Yeah, sure," Ronon shrugged.

John turned back to the hole and threw the rope back down.

"Okay, Baldric," he shouted, "It's your turn now."

There was a scrabbling sound, and then an excited shout.

"The way out is open again. I shall go that way."

John could feel Rodney's glare on the back of his neck. He turned around slowly and shrugged apologetically.

"Hey, you're out, that's the important thing," he suggested, hopefully.

"I could have been killed. You made me climb through a ridiculously narrow tunnel, in the middle of an _earthquake_ and I could have been _crushed to death_, and Baldric gets to walk out the easy way. I should never have listened to you."

The remaining villagers were looking curiously at them, so John left Teyla and Ronon to say their goodbyes and started to herd Rodney back towards the jumper.

"You did good down there," John offered, as they started walking.

"Really?" Rodney weighed up the thought. "I did, didn't I?"

"Sure," John answered. "We all got out of it with nothing more than a few scrapes."

"And we've got new puddle jumpers and drones. Lots of them," Rodney drooled.

"Of course, all the good ideas were mine."

"What?"

"Just saying, I was the brains of the operation today."

Rodney spluttered.

"It was my idea that saved the drones from hitting the village, and my idea that got you out of the tunnels. Safely."

"Well, technically, yes, but—"

"My ideas, Rodney. My brain." John's voice dropped even lower. "Don't tell me you don't find that sexy."

Rodney's stride faltered momentarily, but he was the master of the quick recovery. "I hope you're not going to mention Mensa."

"Wouldn't dream of it."

"Because Mensa is full of idiots who'd like to think they're smart." Rodney waved his hands dismissively.

"Whereas, I, on the other hand—"

"Have an over-inflated ego that I'm not going to pander to." A pause. "My room, twenty-two hundred hours."

John walked faster.

**Author's Note:**

> For Catmoran. Beta thanks to Meghan. First published April 2006. A coda to 'The Tower'.


End file.
